Estimating and Planning Agile User Stories – Part 3 of 9 (Video)

Estimating and Planning Agile User Stories

A 59 Seconds Agile Training Video
Estimating and Planning Agile User Stories Part 3 of 9
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Introduction to Estimating User Stories

A 59 Seconds Agile Article

This article provides an ‘Introduction into Estimating User Stories’ and looks to discuss what a user story is and the methods of estimation and planning within Agile projects.

Taking the Pain Out of Story Estimation

The more time we put into estimating, the better it will turn out. This may sound logical at first glance, but it is not the case. The key word to remember is “estimate”.

An estimate is a guess; while it is possible to be surprisingly accurate when estimating, the estimate could be too optimistic or too pessimistic. However, if the Product Backlog has around 300 user stories in it, the estimates often average out.

Unlike traditional projects, where activities are estimated using time as a basis, such as hours of effort, in Agile we assess the complexity of a user story using story points.

A complex user story will take more time than a simple story, but the focus is on how many user stories we can complete in the current sprint, not the time it will take. We do know how long it will take for all the stories in a sprint to be completed because the sprint has a fixed timeframe. So, instead of using time, we use a points system, allocating a number of points to a story to describe its complexity.

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Estimating User Stories

A 59 Seconds Agile Video Animation
Estimating User Stories with 59 Seconds Agile

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User Stories Applied

A 59 Seconds Agile Book Review

User Stories Applied by Mike Cohn is one of our favourite books on Agile User Stories. The book starts with an overview into user stories, and details what a user story is and the different aspects of them. He then discusses how to go about writing a user story, and provides details of the INVEST criteria that can be used to determine if the story is meeting all of its objectives. Next Mike gives an in depth discussion of who user stories are written for and where to begin when gathering the details for them. The book then discusses acceptance testing user stories, including how to go about specifying these criteria and the responsibilities of the development team and customers during this process.

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What is Agile?

A 59 Seconds Agile Infographic
What is Agile?
What is Agile?

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Agile Scrum Master Training Course

What is Agile? A 59 Seconds Agile Animation Video

Our Favourite Agile Books

We found these books great for finding out more information on Agile Scrum:

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